Gosh, Moving Sure is Fun!

Lost:

Two small pieces of shelving hardware, without which the very necessary third shelf in my glass-front cabinet is rendered useless, which makes unpacking a bin containing the glass-front cabinet’s decorative contents unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Found:

One silver hoop earring from my favorite pair, tucked under the bed-frame leg and discovered on moving day after months of searching for it.

Lost:

One plush monkey named “Baby” that when gripped just the right way by Rouletta and the deft use of her remaining teeth, plays an annoying little song that makes Rouletta very pleased and proud of herself. Now, she and Miss Angel are having alpa dog tiffs over a plush blue dolphin that plays the exact same annoying song, but isn’t, if you ask Rouletta, the same at all.

Found:

Vacuum cleaner bags for a vacuum cleaner I no longer own.

Lost:

An insulated cookie sheet that I used when trying out gluten-free cookie recipes for cookies that look great once baked, but that never taste as great as they look, prompting me to face this stark reality–Toll House cookies made with a tapioca/corn/potato “all-purpose” flour mixture are merely a weird-texture substitute for the real deal.

Found:

A pink dog leash I bought at CVS en route to Fort Myers Beach six months ago when I discovered I had left home with only one leash for two dogs. I very carefully left this leash in my car so I would always have an extra one “just in case,” and never saw it again until I shoved aside the beach chairs that permanently live in the trunk of my car, and, voila–a tangled pink leash in the back left corner.

Lost:

A folding two-step step stool that was sturdy and the perfect height for my five-foot-four self to comfortably reach anything in cabinets situated at the perfect height for the six-foot-tall male who installed them.

Found:

Placemats I KNEW I had packed in one specific bin, but couldn’t find to use at dinner for my great guy’s family who chose five days before we moved as a perfect time to visit from out of town. To my great guy’s family’s credit, they cooked the meal, cleaned up afterward, and cheerfully commented more than once that the table looked “just fine” when I set it using paper towels for both napkins and mats.

Lost:

One night’s sleep in its entirety when my new neighbors, with whom we share only a very small segment of concrete wall that is, unfortunately, a small segment of the master bedroom wall, chose our move-in day as their move-in day, and who felt a compulsive need to pound nails into our shared concrete wall all night long in order to hang 1,235 of their prized pictures.

Found:

A beautiful new fenced yard, a two-block walk to the beach, and a grudging acceptance that although we are in a smaller space that seems impossible to organize in between in-season work shifts, eventually the predictable, yet always disconcerting, lost sense of “home” will be found again.